What you need to do a Precinct Blitz

This method is an integrated approach to precinct walking that involves mail, phones, yard signs, the candidate, and every volunteer and campaign staff member you can muster.

You will need a list of precincts ranked in order of priority.

Personalized letters, yard signs, and a handful of key volunteers, and a couple of automobiles will be necessary as well.

How to do a Precinct Blitz

To properly pull off a Precinct Blitz you are going to need to start about two weeks before each blitz takes place.

It is best to run a blitz on a Saturday or Sunday and not a weekday.

For your first Blitz just try to do one day.

Sunday is a good day for Blitzing because it gives you Saturday to make sure things are in order.

The first thing is to take the top 2 precincts in your precinct ranking order. This a good start and you can expand on it later.

Take both precincts and break them into four separate lists.

Write a campaign letter. This should be a personalize letter, so you will need to do a mail merge, stating who you are what you are running for, why you are running, and that you will be in the neighborhood this weekend and would love the opportunity to speak with you about….pressing issues.

Make sure you have yard signs.

Make sure you have at least 6 volunteers.

You will need two volunteers as callers to work the phones and two volunteers to knock on doors while you are in the precinct.

A fifth volunteer to walk with you and a sixth one should work as a driver.

The driver should be willing to place signs in peoples yards as needed.

Making the Precinct Blitz happen

Once you have determined the day you will be blitzing your targeted precincts the fun begins.

First, you mail your personalized letters announcing that you will be in the neighborhood and available to Q & A regarding important issues and your candidacy.

The mail should go out with plenty of time to reach the targeted voters before you knock on their door.

Have a few volunteers call through the precinct during the week — preferably after the letter hits.

These callers should be identifying supporters, undecided voters, people who want signs, and announcing your availability in their neighborhood on a specific day (the day of the blitz) to answer questions about the upcoming election.

It is important for the caller to ask the voter if they would like a yard sign, which will be delivered the day the candidate will be in the neighborhood.

So before going into the weekend you should already have voters identified that want to talk to you.

You should have identified voters that want signs.

But most importantly you will identify more voters that are undecided. Don’t leave the precinct until you talk to all of the undecided voters.

You will also be identifying voters will not be voting for you or “NO” votes. Do not waste your time knocking on the doors of the NO’s.

You and your team will have this information on your precincts lists when you hit the street.

The day before the Precinct Blitz will take place try and schedule a robo cal.

The robo call should be a reminder to voters that you will be in the neighborhood and available to answer questions about the upcoming election.

One thing that works great with these reminder robo calls is to have a local elected official or known community leader record the message for you.

Before making robo or automated calls, make certain you check with all local, state and federal laws.

On Sunday, before you start your blitz, maybe 30 minutes to an hour prior, have two callers start phoning the first targeted precinct.

Make certain your callers are calling the portion of the precinct that you and your team will start walking.

It is important that you go where the callers have recently called. You want your callers just ahead of you on the precinct lists.

These callers will be once again announcing your visit to the neighborhood and further identifying supporters, those that want signs, and those that want to talk to you.

Your callers should be constantly updating you on new requests from voters either through phone, text, or email.

When you arrive in the precinct you should already have a list of people that want to talk with you, people who are undecided, and people who want signs.

As a candidate you need to start visiting with the folks that want to meet with you.

Your walkers should start knocking on doors where no one has been reached and finding more voters for you to talk to.

When they find an undecided voter, or one that wants to talk to you, they need to inform the voter that you are nearby and available to answer any questions they may have.

The key to a blitz is to keep the candidate talking to as many voters as possible the entire time.

As a candidate you should only be visiting voters identified as undecided or those that really want to discuss the election with you.

Again, you should not be talking to “NO” votes nor should you waste time knocking on doors of voters that may or may not be home.

One volunteer should stay with the car and one with you. The others should be knocking on doors.

The volunteer with the car should be placing signs and be available to drive every one to the next targeted precinct area.

Constant communication is critical and at all times no one should be too far away from anyone. This is why with a blitz you only do one small portion of a precinct at a time.

The callers should keep calling through the voter lists.

It will be important to call back the voters who are not home, and continually build the list of people for you to talk with and those that want yard signs.

After the callers have gone through the list multiple times they should go to the next location that you and your volunteers will be walking.

The Precinct Blitz is an integrated approach to precinct walking.

You will need to do a Precinct Blitz several times before you and your team become real good at it.

The first time out there will be difficult, but it won’t take long to get the hang of it.

Once you get it down you can expand it to include more volunteers and more precincts and even more days of the week.

You don’t have to include all components discussed here, but the more activity you create the more notice of your campaign will be taken by the voters.

In the beginning, you and your team of volunteers will probably only get through one, two, or three precincts a day with this method.

But you will identify many more voters than you normally would have.

With a Precinct Blitz you will also place more yards signs per precinct than with more conventional methods.

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